


When U Love Somebody

by conniptionns



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Birthday, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:10:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14682384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conniptionns/pseuds/conniptionns
Summary: It's Neil's birthday and he just wants a lowkey day in. Andrew is happy to oblige him.





	When U Love Somebody

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CasTheButler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasTheButler/gifts).



> I survived my undergraduate thesis! Yippie ki-yay MOTHERFUCKERS, I got an A. You're looking at the dummy who wrote about why we miscommunicate OR The Role of Forgiveness in Political Ideology ;)
> 
> Please enjoy. Also listen to the song: [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3AdabEnicE)

Neil’s birthday fell on a Saturday. There was going to be perfect weather, too, and the entire team had been planning a party for the better part of six months. The Thursday before the fated event was meant to take place, Neil had a slumber party in the girl’s dorm with an angry Andrew.

Andrew definitely didn’t want to be there, but sometimes his his head felt funny – probably a side effect of taking medication he didn’t need for the better part of a year. Whenever his head was fuzzy like this he became clingy, well he wouldn’t call it clingy because that was a fucking dangerous thing to be, but he usually stuck close to Neil and where Neil went, Andrew was his grumpy shadow.

They had been in the girls dorm through Mean Girls and Legally Blonde, and after the comments that Andrew should take his CJ major and go to law school so they could make a movie about his life called Legally Blond, well, Andrew had had it. He slouched over to the window, and after pulling out a pocket knife to cut through where the school had painted it shut, he popped out the screen. Neil assumed he was going to smoke up. It was rare that Andrew pulled out the small, glass pipe but when he did, Neil knew he was hellaciously annoyed.

When the musky smell of pot threaded its way through the room, the only person to complain was Dan.

“What the fuck, Andrew? You know they do random testing for student athletes!”

“So?”

“Neil, talk some sense into him. He’s going to get suspended right in time to ruin your birthday.”

At the mention of his birthday, Neil only blinked owlishly. He had forgotten Neil Josten’s birthday. His mother would kill him if she were there. As it were, she was probably looking down, or probably in her case up, at him and cussing a blue streak a mile wide. Neil sunk into the couch and for the first time in his life, he was grateful that his mother was long dead, and that made his chest clench in pain.

Allison, trying to be subtle, said, “So, have you decided what you want to do for your birthday, because if you don’t know I have a  few ideas up my sleeve, but I haven’t really thought about it yet.” Translation: she had planned and booked six different events for the upcoming Saturday and would pick the one that most nearly matched what Neil wanted, or cancel them all and start again.

“I – uh, yeah. I actually have thought a little bit about it,” Neil admitted.

Where there had been three interested parties before, Neil’s response made a fourth head swivel in his direction.

“Pray, do tell,” Allison said, making Renee snort.

“I was thinking something really under key—”

“Low key,” Dan corrected.

“Yeah, low key. I don’t really want to do much. Birthdays in Baltimore were these big events, more for …” he stumbled, looking for the word, “Nathan than for me. And then when I was on the run with Mary, it was never actually a thing. Mostly because every identity had a different birthday.”

“You’ve never called her by her name before,” Andrew said, creeping closer.

“You noticed that, huh?” Neil tugged on his neck, sheepish.

“I make it a habit to notice everything about you.” Andrew said it like a fact. No more, no less. Neil rubbed at his nose to hide his smile behind his hand, but the girls didn’t let it go that easily.

“Was that something, dare I say romantic, coming out of the monster’s mouth?”

“I heard it, did you hear it?”

“Yes, I heard it.”

“Hey, can we quit calling him a monster? I sort of take offense to that.

“Sorry, Neil,” the trio said.

Andrew just rolled his eyes, but gave Neil a look that said they would have a conversation about his mother later when no one else was around. Neil gave a nearly imperceptible nod in reply.

“Okay, back to birthday, because I don’t think I heard you correctly,” Allison started. “You don’t want to have a birthday?”

“No, well, I mean it’s okay if we do, but I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. I mean, it’s not even really my birthday. I think I’m supposed to be a Capricorn or something.”

Before anyone else could talk, Andrew strode across the room, anger radiating off his back. He dug through Neil’s duffle and came up with a faded leather wallet. He fished something out of it and flicked it at Neil’s head.

Neil reached down and picked it up gingerly between two fingers. It was his driver’s license, his real one. The one the FBI had given him. He knew that behind it in his wallet was his social security card that Kevin insisted that he put in a safe somewhere, but Neil carried it with him for exactly the reason that Andrew had thrown his ID at him.

“Read it,” Andrew ordered.

“Andrew, I—”

“Read it.”

“Neil Abram Josten. 1066 Glen Haven Dr. Columbia, South Carolina. Birthday March 31. Blue eyes. Auburn hair. Five foot three inches—and a half but they didn’t put that.”

“They didn’t put that because it’s a sin to lie, Abram,” Andrew said, like every memory Neil ever had wasn't a carefully crafted lie. It was nice.

Neil grinned up at Andrew with glassy eyes. “You’re my home.”

There were coos in the background. Andrew ignored them. “Yes, my place of residence is also your place of residence. That wasn’t what you were supposed to get from that.”

“No, I know. Nathaniel is dead. Does that make Neil – make me an Aries?”

“I genuinely don’t give a fuck.”

“Spoken like a true Scorpio,” Allison said, coming forward to wrap Neil in a hug.

“We can go over our horoscopes later, you fuckers,” Dan said, wiping tears from her eyes. “God, I’m never calling you a monster again. Right now, it’s birthday planning time.”

“You’re going to crack my ribs,” Neil complained into Allison’s hair that had somehow made its way into his mouth and up his nose.

“Okay, okay. I’m done,” she said, stepping back. “I just love you.

“I forgot you’re allergic to emotion, god.”

“Sorry, Al.”

“No worries.” She sniffed unconvincingly.

“But about my birthday, I just want you know a day in.”

“Say no more,” Allison said, intently typing on her cellphone.

* * *

Saturday Neil woke up to the sun higher in the sky than he expected. His alarm usually went off at 5:30, and rolling over to look at the clock let him know that it was 8:42. No one was in the room, but that was to be expected. Andrew fell asleep on the beanbag the night before and Kevin was at the court no later than 7 every morning. The fact that Neil got to sleep as late as he did wasn’t expected though.

He reached out to snag the alarm clock and blinked the blurriness out of his eyes just to see that his alarm was switched off. What the fuck. It was never off.

Behind the alarm was what Neil thought was supposed to be a birthday present. It was a small box that was wrapped in duct tape instead of wrapping paper. Before Neil could get annoyed at how stupid it was to wrap something up in black tape he noticed that the lid had been carefully wrapped separately, so the tape just served to hide the branding on the top of the box. It looked time intensive and done with exquisite care. Lifting the lid revealed two small weights for him to stretch out his ears—something he had mentioned offhand to Andrew more than a month ago. It was the best birthday present.

Shuffling out the bedroom and into the living room, Neil almost tripped over a sleeping Andrew. He was sprawled over the beanbag in a position that would probably wreck his back and neck. Neil didn’t have the heart to wake him up to his pain, so he stepped over him and went into the kitchen to make coffee. He couldn’t drink the shit, but he pulled out the free energy drinks that had been handed out on campus the day before. Honestly, it was shit too but Neil could drink shit if it was free.

The smell of coffee was what woke Andrew, but he only let out a belly aching groan and flopped bodily onto the floor.

“Say no more,” Neil said, walking over to Andrew with one of Kevin’s (probably expired) vicodin from when his hand was shattered, and a cup of black coffee and an obscene amount of sugar.

“I hope you laced this with arsenic to kill me,” Andrew said before taking a sip.

“Happy birthday to you, too,” Neil snorted.

“Oh, does the birthday boy want to acknowledge his fake, arbitrary birthday? Or did I mistake your drunken tirade last night as wanting to forget the whole thing?”

“So I might have been a little dramatic last night, fight me.”

Andrew raised an amused brow in response.

“Okay, don’t fight me because I’m fragile and you’re built like a brick shithouse.”

Andrew snorted coffee out his nose.

Neil kissed him, even though there was coffee all down his chin.

“I—” Neil started.

“I know,” Andrew said. Neil didn’t have say I love you, Andrew just knew.

“Once the drugs kick in, I have another gift to give you.”

“Is it deez nuts?”

“Don’t ever try to quote pop culture to me again.”

“I practiced that for two weeks.”

“I hate you even more now.”

“Can I be honest with you? I hate me a little, too, after that.”

They sprawled together on the couch, legs slotted in unconventional places because it was one of those shitty dorm couches that didn’t have enough room for one person to lay comfortably, let alone two. The sunlight made Andrew’s eyelashes translucent and Neil was overcome with the feeling of how much he felt for Andrew; the good and the bad. It left a hollow ache in his belly and made his chest clench.

“Are you seriously hard right now?” Andrew was incredulous.

“Nooo,” Neil lied, hiding his face in Andrew’s neck.

“This is li- _trally_ the most uncomfortable position on the face of his earth.”

“Okay, Chris Traeger, can I have my boyfriend back now?”

“That’s disgusting. 108%.”

“That’s higher than 100.”

“Don’t state the obvious to me.”

“No pop culture, no common sense.”

“How about this? No speaking.”

“But it’s my birthday!”

“Happy birthday, now shut the fuck up.”

Neil just bit his lip and put his face back in Andrew’s neck.

“And I love you, too, Junkie.”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://www.exychamp.tumblr.com)


End file.
